Cricket World Cup 2003: A toast to the minnows

BUSINESS DAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2003

I WAS SHATTERED WHEN we lost to the West Indies in the first match, but even had we won, I could not have been more genuinely delighted than I was watching Kenya beat Sri Lanka this week. What happened in that match was a triumph for sport, and for the dream of what sport used to mean.

Amid all the fluster and hullabaloo of the World Cup so far, I have been finding solace in the smaller teams. I watched in raptures as the Canadians beat the Bangladeshis in their first match, this team of part-timers, this hodge-podge gaggle of plumbers and builders and high-school teachers from a frozen land, tubby, elderly and not uniformly fleet of foot, expecting nothing of this tournament and with nothing but the joy of the game in their hearts. I was just as delighted with the Netherlands slugging it out with the Indians, the Namibians hanging tough with Pakistan.

There is something reassuringly pure in watching the small teams pitting themselves against insuperable odds merely to stand tall with giants. With the exception of Bangladesh, the most undeserving test nation under this or any conceivable heaven, they all deserve to stand tall. It is soothing to watch them. There are no cross-currents or clouds to obscure your pleasure. There are no doping scandals or salary wrangles; there are no power plays or petty politics; there are no niggling rumours that so-and-so is about to quit to play county cricket, or that such-and-such has lost his passion for the game. It is just 11 men doing their best to play well a game they still love, a game that has not become just another way of earning a living.

And how they are performing. John Davison of Canada, in an innings out of Roy of the Rovers, scored the fastest century in World Cup history. John-Berry Burger of Namibia cracked an even-time 80-odd against England. And then the Kenyans smacked Sri Lanka. Of course Collins Obuya’s 5-24 was the highlight, but it was not Obuya who won that match. The Sri Lankans were simply blown away by the most passionate team performance of the tournament so far.

The Kenyans fielded like South Africa used to field. They threw themselves around; they sprinted after balls from which no runs were likely to accrue; they encouraged and congratulated and consoled and urged each other on. Two images will live with me from that game: the Kenyans gathering after each wicket, their arms around each others’ shoulders and jumping up and down at the joy of being together and fighting together; and Collins Obuya, having dismissed Chaminda Vaas, sprinting from sheer exuberance towards the boundary ropes like an English football player.

For me, the biggest game of the World Cup will be Kenya against Bangladesh. It is a clash that represents for me the fundamental tension in world sport: commerce versus the game itself. Bangladesh should not have test status ahead of Kenya. Compared with the fire and heart and passion of the Kenyans, the Bangladeshis are like a mini-Pakistan. They were only given test status because the bean-counters at the ICC calculated they could make more money from the larger Bangladeshi market. For a few extra bucks they turned their backs on the Kenyans and left them to flail about on their own.

When Kenya beat Bangladesh and move into the Super Sixes they will have made a firm point on behalf of the so-called minnows that have given me so much pleasure these past weeks. I have, I realise now, been feeling my own passion for the game dwindle as I watch the jaded self-absorption of some of the big teams, treating each match like just another day at the office, their minds on their endorsement contracts or the golf course, all romance and wonder drained out of their games. It has taken the minnows to remind me of how it used to be.

“We play every game as though it’s the World Cup final,” said the Netherlands captain this week. The Canadians will not only not be paid for their time here, but they have had to take annual leave from their day jobs back home, and they did it willingly, for the simple love of cricket. Along with the bravehearts of Namibia and the heroes of Kenya, they remind me of what is glorious about the game, and how much we have lost since becoming professional. On behalf of sport lovers everywhere, I want to thank them all. The World Cup would not be the same without them.